Interesting article on the trend to hire public figures who "flamed out," or however Ariel Kaminer put it. Since there were no comments, I wanted to respond in person:

The
article seems to suggest that universities are the refuge of washed up
sexual miscreants, and does a great job discussing what it's like for
the school and teachers and the students who come into contact with these people. That said, many of these
public figures were written about in this very newspaper, and you all
did as much as anyone to ruin these people's reputations. Mr. Kaminer's
article still makes them, and universities, look like fools.

Another
way to put it might be that universities are willing to hire remarkable
people with interesting experiences. It's a classic second chance,
and an acceptance of other view points. Universities get much from them
in the form of attention and celebrity status, and of course, money.
I'm just saying that it's not surprising that The Times, who are
just as guilty of following the heard mentality, reporting exactly what
officials tell you, pick a bone with institutions that absorb people
screwed over by reporters reporting on other people's reporting. As if
sending a picture of your penis, or whatever, to a college girl is
really that much worse than whatever we've done at some point in our
lives.

While the university system is less than perfect, and
headed towards changes, it's an example of a public institution that has
fared reasonable well in the last twenty years....Unlike mainstream
journalism, which, The Times included has, more or less, been
co-opted by conglomerates of politically driven billionaires. If not
directly than indirectly in the sense that its the big medias (CNN, Fox
News, ABC, etc.) that drive the market for news, and how much attention
you devote to each story.

In short, I'm saying you could
have just as easily spun this as a good thing, rather than an implied
bad thing. Or taken some responsibility for how they got there in the
first place. Or better yet, provide critical analysis of things like the
Moody's report on the economic state of higher education, rather than
just telling us what Moody's says about it.

Maybe I'm just
confused about what newspapers are supposed to do, and maybe it's in
your every right to call it like you see it (or don't see it). But as a
representative of academia, we do a lot of good work, and are a heck of a
lot more careful than you guys about what we say and why. Who knows
what the future of journalism is, but you all could stand to take some
criticism yourself, beginning with owning up to how much influence you
have in shaping public opinion, and how much that influence is squandered on politically driven
slander.